Problems... Triangles... feck

To give a brief summary before I start crying into my keyboard, I've gotten the triangle of death this afteroon. Despite that and a few oddities, the battery is acting normal and acts like a well behaved one. All fluids are fine. 12V battery settled at 12.3V with Ign off. The inverter pump is ok.

Anyways. Gotten quite a shock this afternoon. Booted up the car and gotten the triangle of death, the screen had the little red car icon with an exclaimation mark, VSC and the orange handbrake lights were on which I think may be good indicators to whatever is going on here.

After the engine warmed up and shut off (which was no longer than usual), I rebooted it and the engine went through the whole warming up stage again. . It went from 5 bars to 6 and shut off again when it did so. Drove off, engine idled again and off again through the multistorey carpark as usual, so brief steep climbs and descents between floors.

The battery has always maintained itself 6 - 5 bars the majority of the time and it did so on the drive home. There was never any loss of bars overnight. I've parked it once for 4 days a few months ago and the bars didn't change. All winter I got tanks giving me 56 and 54 mpg Imperial with a combo of mostly short drives (~3 to 17 miles) and long trips (20 - 70 miles) on weekends. This week was exceptional as I've drove +500 miles over the weekend (52.6 mpg) that involved a lot of ferrying and dune sand (Which I'll get to at the very end).

Drove a short while, 3-ish miles and it kept at 6 bars until the very end, mainly down hill, heavy traffic with 68 mpg, which I reset to see anything wrong with performance. During that drive homoe, VSC and the orange handbrake light were on and the car refused to go into EV mode via the button. Despite this, electric performance was really good, likely due to the warm-ish weather that finally got here (~14C). So interior was nice when I got in it, not too cold or hot and so would the battery.

Right. So, rebooted it twice at home, the VSC and other light went off and the car would accept the EV button. After that I was stumped since I still had that ugly Triangle and the one on the display taunting me. Checked all fluids, looked for leaks, checked if the metal battery case was warm to the touch. Checked the 12V with ignition off, went from 12.6V and stabilised at 12.3V for several minutes. All fine.

Given that the VSC was on, would this be brakes related or anything? I've been enduring an annoying whine from the front right brake and the disk does has stripes of uneven wear. Told my local mechanic recently and he said that it may be something related with the fire wall??? It wasn't the first time as the rear right pad was much louder and rang to the beat of jingle bells and sounded like bells - until a stone was knocked out and the calipers widened properly away from the disk.

So the sand.

The one thing I was worried about is the large trip I had over St.Patrick's day weekend. I drove ~ 100 miles just before packing up with 2 other people to Kerry ~200 miles. Kept constant climate control of 19 - 20 degrees C at or below medium fan speed, because I'm stingy. It would've been 6 bars 98% of the time. There was one moment after Tralee that I was going down a fast descent (100km/h), but I was focusing too much on the street signs and the gps that was too old to recognise the road... and locals that had no clue about driving. Looking at the energy moniter, it was all green and I admit I should've put it in B immediately. bad move... It as like that for a while until I noticed the engine turning into an air pump soon before the first turn off. I've experienced this before once almost 2 years ago. Car still behaved as it would, burnt off as much excess as possible. A series of rountabouts followed at 7 bars and I noticed it used very little regen. I heard the brakes scraping as soon as 40-35 km/h when normally it's 10. It as totally normal after that. Got 52 mpg on the way there.

What made me slightly freak out was that just before the destination, the road cuts though sand dunes and a good 100m is patched with sand. After bad nights, it's coated. For 3 days I probably drove over and back that road 20 times given that I was the only guy at the party with a car to ferry everyone to the shops and back. I loved it, but in the back of my mind I was dead worried of catching rust, and convinced as I see surfaces turning brown behind the wheel wells.

I cleaned it as much as I can with a car wash that claimed to do the underbody and a water hose as a rinse.

There was some amount of sand and the roads were not dry that weekend, would that affect anything like brakes?

So... just 7,000 miles and 8 months in and this happens. First thought that came into my head was to order that HA balancer or charger asap, but the battery isn't showing any signs of age. I don't have the money and especially not the time to spontaneously buy an OBD or anything like that - or to get the dealer to do it for me. I'm really hoping someone might find my conditions familliar as I'm not seeing any similarities between my battery and a battery nearing failure.

I'm giving it an hour or two before booting it again, in case it's just a computer fart or something. Should give it a good run (~30 miles) to find anything unordinary or is that pushing it?

so feckit, and my friday was going so well.

 

Will do, Bisco. I should add that its 12V was replaced last July.

Just crossed 148,000 miles this week. I had to do errands round town, so 14-ish miles. The fuel economy is normal for what I did, 55.6mpg since I reset this evening. Battery bars were normal, mainly at 5 bars, got to 4 at the end, mainly due to more time spent crawling and stationary.

I'm wondering if this is a catalytic or O2 sensor problem. Also thought of the engine itself, with the bonnet up it certainly has more of a tick or produces more treble/high pitch noises. When teasing the throttle, there's noticeable but slight clunks when the engine stops. When holding the throttle lightly, there's zn unfamiliar, hollow rattle. Is it pre-igniting, and how, all fuels in Ireland are 95 Octane? Am I just freaking out at this stage?

I forced charged from 4 to 6 bars and gonna see if it decreases in the morning, doubt it since it's already freezing.

 

Thanks man, it's my tears at work!

I was hoping to give my family's usual mechanic a look. He's awesome and reliable, but limited in ways, for example recharging the AC is a job he said he would recommend an official Toyota dealer for. Hoping he has a reader, if so, the only time I have free for a booking is Thursday. Over the few years having the car, we've done standard hybrid check-ups which always neared a bill of under 400 euro. I'd be wary how much they would charge me for just sticking the thing into the OBD.

Admittedly we didn't see much of them after they charged us roughly 215 euro to replace a 12V instead of buying a new one for a 50 - and after they crashed the rear-side of the car while it was getting serviced. Despite that, the usual mechanic serviced it when it was time to do so, which was nothing more than just an oil change some 6000 miles ago.

If anyone around Dublin has the right reader, that could really help.

I wonder if PC can do hashtags so my desperation can travel further...

 

I can't say that it is. Kerry's a hilly place and that was perhaps over 5 mins of dragging the brakes (actually, I used cruise control) and the descent started with 6 bars as it would from high speed cruising. I only see one green bar when exiting a motorway.

In town it's totally normal, no rapid dips, just stays mainly with 5-6 bars. When traffic is heavier that's 4-6. I've haven't gone down to 3 bars this week despite heavy traffic.

I've checked the oil and it's probably over a 1/3 on the stick - guess I should top it up with the 5W-30. Not as clean as I remember the last oil being, but I've done a lot of mad trips.

[EDIT], so moved the car this morning to a properly level bit of road and I'm covinced that I can't read a dipstick. After warming up the engine and letting it stop itself, put it in and out slowly and every time like a pattern, first read was at the empty mark, second read was at the top bump on the stick and so on. Also doesn't help that the oil cap is ceased.

I checked the engine bay with Ign-On, whoops, between 10-15 mins, battery went from 6 bars to 3. Radio was on. That might be the sign

Anyways - I try driving it as gently as possible for money and longevity reasons, only when overtaking would I have to floor it and yeah... believe me, that weekend I had to stay in the fast lane at +130 km/h given how dodgy the sunday drivers were behaving. But on the way home there was also mainly a bunch of undulating hills gradually heading downwards. At that speed for that stretch, the consumption display consistently showed 55 mpg that was 52 before setting off, although I felt that was the hardest I've ever pushed the car.

 

*sigh*

uuuhhh

So, it was a 'computer fart'. Yesterday drove 31 miles all over the city, had 3 passengers for at least half of it, got 63 mpg, just showing off for nothin but it would solidify my statement of how it wouldn't be the HV battery nearing death. After leaving the car to sit for 2 hours and rebooting it again, everything went to normal. A sensor going nuts maybe?

The Prius is without a doubt some peculiar car. By that definition I wouldn't be surprised if the triangle of death came back.

I would like to say thank you all for your suggestions and help!

 

Update, hopefully final. Got some codes from the awesome mechanic I know. In his words, the pack was overheating, although the car was barely luck warm when I first saw the errors. He said that either the battery fan has failed or is struggling/clogged, or a sensor related to which that went array. He recommended to clean the fan when I gt the time to book for it. I would've done that anyway as soon as I spring for a battery balancer, so why not just the fan sooner than later?

codes:

P0A85
P3000